


Sighs and Wonders

by Wildgoosery



Series: I'm With the Band [23]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Cuddling & Snuggling, Kissing, M/M, Oral Sex, Rimming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-13
Updated: 2018-11-13
Packaged: 2019-08-23 07:34:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16614644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wildgoosery/pseuds/Wildgoosery
Summary: Taako wakes up horny and in love and determined to do something about it. Brad asks an unexpected question.





	Sighs and Wonders

Taako sits up in bed, and stretches, and takes stock as he rubs the back of his neck. He’s not as sore as usual, but he does feel a little frayed at the edges; a little fogged with the muzzy almost-hangover of emotional intensity and late-night sex without drinking a goddamn glass of water. 

Brad is still asleep beside him, turned away from the windows and the sun-brightened curtains. Muffled Saturday morning sounds rise from the street several stories below, but it’s quiet enough for Taako to hear the soft rasp of his slow deep breathing. The covers are low on his torso, leaving swaths of green skin bare to gleam invitingly in the filtered light. He’s beautiful, and familiar, and a sort of starved fondness tightens in Taako’s throat; sits heavy and hot in his chest. 

It’s been ages since they’ve had a morning like this, just the two of them in a big warm bed and nowhere they need to be. Thinking about it, Taako’s pretty sure the last time would’ve been in Brad’s apartment, more than half a year ago. Maybe a week before that one bad night when everything went to shit. Before he went down to Refuge. Before Kravitz turned up again. Before a whole lot of things in his life changed completely. The last time he’d woken up alone with Brad, he was still the Taako who told himself that none of this was a big deal; that they were just a couple of coworkers casually passing the time.

Fuck, that Taako was such an idiot. It feels ridiculous, now, to think he nearly burned all of this down behind him.

Taako reaches over to brush his fingertips along Brad’s temple, gentling stray wisps of hair back from his forehead. “I love you,” Taako murmurs. Then, a little louder, “Brad, I love you.” Trying it on for size.

He doesn’t really feel any different, but that’s alarming in its own way. He’s in love with the orc from HR whom he bullied at a Bureau retreat, and he has been for a while. Maybe has been for a _long_ while. God.

He pushes at Brad’s shoulder and murmurs, “Lemme big spoon.” Brad sighs and turns to lay on his side, still dozing, so that Taako can curl up behind him and tuck the crooks of their knees together. Brad’s skin smells like soap and his body is solid and warm. Taako drapes an arm around Brad’s ribcage and presses his face against the bare skin of Brad’s back. His arm rises and falls with the slow rhythm of sleeping breath.

He slides his hand over the planes of Brad’s stomach, the fuzzy softness below his navel, the point of a hipbone, the dip where a leg connects. He pushes his fingers through thicker curls of hair, meandering, until they find the velvet warm of Brad’s cock. Already half-hard, as it often is in the morning. Taako cups his hand around it and hums, content. Indulging in a quiet moment of ownership, of possessing someone so reserved and self-contained. Is this how Brad feels when he whispers “you’re _mine_ ” into Taako’s ear? When he has Taako collared and cowed? 

Brad’s cock twitches and warms against his palm. His own is tucked very pleasantly between the cheeks of Brad’s ass. All of this is pleasant, and probably he should let Brad sleep; just lay here in this comfortable bed and enjoy having this nice big man all to himself. 

Taako scoots up far enough to kiss the nape of Brad’s neck. “Hey,” he murmurs. When there’s no response, he gets up on his elbow and leans in to nip at an earlobe. “C’mon, big guy, it’s morning.” Brad mumbles something incoherent, and Taako pulls at his shoulder. “Baby, I’m horny, you gotta.”

Brad’s hand reaches back to catch at Taako’s wrist and tug on it, insistent. Taako laughs, “My dude, it’ll be a whole lot easier if you just roll back over,” but Brad only grumbles again and tugs a little harder. 

Groaning loudly, as if he’s put-upon instead of achingly charmed by all of this, Taako clambers over the mountain of Brad’s torso; as soon as he’s in reach Brad’s arms are around him, pulling him near with no regard for logistics. He ends up half on his back with Brad’s erection along his waist and Brad’s chin on top of his head, and as he tries to wriggle into a less awkward position Brad’s hold on him only tightens. 

“You’re squashing me,” Taako laughs, playfully shoving at Brad’s hands; Brad responds by hooking a meaty leg over his hips and grunting, satisfied, into his hair. It’s goofy and affectionate but also, it’s strong arms keeping him still and close, only a slight shift in mood away being held down on the bed. Taako’s vague horniness spikes, his cock thumming under the weight of Brad’s thigh. 

He maybe doesn’t want to be squashed this morning, though, is the thing. He maybe doesn’t want to be the one who’s overwhelmed, not physically anyway.

He’s definitely overwhelmed in other departments. As Brad stirs into wakefulness and trails soft kisses along Taako’s brow, as Brad murmurs “Good morning, love,” in a low perfect rumble, Taako’s heartbeat races. Not panic, not even anxiety really, just a dizzy vibrato of love and desire; an eagerness to do something big and earnest and loud. To jump without looking, not out but _deeper_. Further in. All the way into whatever this is gonna be, wherever it’s gonna go.

Taako angles up his chin to catch Brad’s mouth with his, and for a while that occupies most of his attention. He likes it when Brad kisses him this way, savoring and unhurried, tusks cool and smooth against his lips. But he’s hungry for more than lazy aimless necking. “How about you get on your back,” Taako purrs, “and lemme take care of you.”

“Mmm.” One of Brad’s enormous hands slides down to cup his ass. “Or. I could take care of _you_.”

Taako hums a negative and pushes against Brad’s chest, firm. “I don’t think so,” he says, inflexibly sing-song. “On your back.”

Brad kisses him once more and obligingly rolls over, releasing Taako from the cage of his limbs. He settles on the pillows with his hands behind his neck and his elbows splayed to either side. There’s a shade of smirk to the curve of his mouth, but all he says is, “Will this do?”

Taako sits up and speaks a word of warmth to ward off the winter morning, then shoves the bedding aside. Brad shifts his legs further apart, easy but purposeful, which affords a perfect view of his blood-darkened cock and the tidy mound of his balls; a delicious glimpse of his ass below them. 

Taako looks down at Brad’s naked body, at all the dips and swells of green against persimmon sheets. “Jesus Fantasy Christ, you’re hot,” he says. “Like this is criminal.”

Brad splays his legs even wider. “And what are you going to do about it?”

Taako laughs and leans in to kiss Brad’s mouth, and drawls “I’m gonna suck your dick,” as he palms as much cock as will fit inside his hand. Then he starts the journey south again, licking and nipping a trail along Brad’s neck, his chest, the warm curves of his stomach that jump when Taako’s lips brush against them too lightly. Brad’s fingers are in Taako’s hair, encouraging, as he presses his cheek to the hot silken shaft of Brad’s cock. And it’s nice, of course. Of course he loves to be touched by Brad in almost any damn way because hell, he _loves_ Brad, he loves Brad’s hands and his body and his everything, each thing about him. 

But also. Also this morning, right now, Taako wants to feel like he has his arms around it all; like it’s something he can hold and own and keep. He looks up at Brad from under his lashes, the whole length of Brad’s erection along his face, and says, “Hands to yourself, baby.” 

Brad’s eyes widen but he does as asked immediately, his arms returned to where they were. Satisfied, Taako pulls the velvet softness of foreskin down and curls his tongue around the head of Brad’s cock, and draws from Brad a soft greedy sound that hits Taako square in the dick.

It’s almost impossible to get the whole thing in his mouth but it’s just so nice to _try_. Even after all these months the aching stretch of his jaw, the sweat salt taste on his tongue, the musky smell of Brad’s body, all of it still brings him back to the early days of rug burned knees and weekly appointments, of begging to have his face fucked in a near-stranger’s office. He’d wanted it then, and badly, and now those memories have the glow of tender hindsight. 

Probably that shocked eroticism is firmly behind him, impossible to recreate with a man who’s so safe and familiar, but that’s all right. He’s had that kind of fun already, and hey, here’s another. Here’s Brad’s perfect cock nudging into his throat, slick with saliva, one of Taako’s hands around the shaft while the other cups his balls, fingertips curling up to stroke the sensitive skin just behind them. Taako’s been hard almost since he woke up, and by now he’s pleasantly desperate to be touched; just as pleasantly denying that desire, allowing himself to rut against the sheets but only that, and only a little, cool ghosts of contact that have him moaning around his mouthful.

He glances up at Brad, whose hands are still obediently laced behind his neck and who is watching, flushed and heavy lidded. Taako holds that eye contact as he pulls back, Brad’s cock sliding from his mouth with a soft wet sound. He holds it upright and in full view with his hand, and smiles as he nips at the soft folds of skin just beneath the head. The gasp this wins him might as well be music.

He nuzzles the hot hard length of it, lingering in how good it feels against his lips and his cheek. As much as he had a plan going into this, it was to end with Brad’s hips bucking up into his mouth while he swallowed a bittersalt flood of come. And maybe that’s still where they’re headed. But he wants to savor being here and having Brad like this, pliant and panting slightly. He wants to make it last. 

And maybe he wants to push a little. Maybe he wants to see what other noises he can draw out.

He lays on his stomach with his cock sandwiched between sheets and skin. Both his hands slide along furred thighs, and he parts them further to make room for him to nose up under the warm heft of balls. He can hear Brad’s breathing quicken, anticipatory, as he cups Brad’s ass in his palms. “Help me out here,” he purrs. A question of logistics and an easy chance for Brad to change the course of things -- no hard feelings, no big deal.

Brad’s pelvis shifts in Taako’s hands, lifting a few inches as Brad slides a pillow underneath to hold himself higher off the bed. No argument or hesitation at all, which begs the question of why they haven’t done this before; why it hadn’t even occurred to Taako to spoil Brad in this particular way. And once Brad’s settled again, Taako gently pulls him open and drags a slow wet lick along his ass. 

Brad can’t have been surprised and yet his breath catches; Taako’s nose is pressed against the root of Brad’s cock, and he can feel the hot thrum of it as Brad gasps, soft and uneven. His hand wanders up to smear a trickle of precum. It’s all immensely satisfying, and only improved upon as he experiments with the flick of his tongue, with pressure and pace, and listens to how it breaks low moans of pleasure into pieces. Tongue and lips and spit teasing Brad open with the unhurried patience of an elf who hasn’t decided where he’s going with this yet. 

Taako is fluent in the language of this body, this dialect of breath and muscle, but now...Brad is restless in his grip, murmuring breathy fragments of encouragement, wanton in a way he’s never been, or not with Taako anyway. He can feel his own body answering in kind, aching with an urgency that ratchets up with every noise Brad makes; his dick throbbing, unignorable, between his stomach and the bed. Brad loosening around his tongue. 

The first daring fingertip is met with a eager answering rut, and then Taako’s beckoning inside him, one finger then two, searching slick warmth for just the right spot to push, the exact angle and pressure to make Brad’s back arch up and off the bed. He can feel that Brad’s close, a telltale twitch and tightening, and he shifts to take Brad into his mouth again, anticipating a hot flood down his throat, maybe a bitten-off cry. Maybe a big hand holding the back of his skull if Brad can’t help himself.

“Pet,” Brad murmurs. 

It takes effort to resist the reflex to snap his head up at that. Instead he dips lower, taking Brad in and swallowing him down so deeply that lips brush coarse curls of hair. Fingers still inside Brad, still seeking in that softness for the spots that make him shudder, Taako withdraws until the head of Brad’s cock is just behind his lips. Only then does he lift his eyes and hum a questioning “mm?”

“Do you want to fuck me?” Brad murmurs. His hands are still behind his neck. His voice is quiet gravel.

Taako’s sure his face turns pink as a lewd flash of images rushes to mind: Brad and his body and how he might look, how he might _feel_. A disorganized sketch of a fantasy but one that knocks Taako over. None of this has ever crossed his mind before, and now that it has, the intensity of what he’s doing — what he’s _been_ doing with his mouth and his hands, Brad prone and willing in his bed — is freshly overwhelming.

Taako sits up on his knees. His voice wavers a little as he says, “Didn’t think that was on the table.”

Brad watches Taako over the planes of his chest, which rise and fall with lust-quickened breaths. “It is,” Brad says.

“Do you....” Taako swallows the nervous giggling that threatens to overtake him and ruin what he’s on the edge of, here; this impossibly erotic blindside. “Is that what you want?”

“Yes.”

“How?” Taako does finally laugh then, a breath of a chuckle. “I mean...where should I...” He looks down at Brad, at the hand still _inside_ of Brad and the spit-slick swell of his cock, the tremble of his stomach. 

“Come here,” Brad murmurs. He gasps a little as Taako’s fingers slip out of him, and then they’re kissing again, ravenous, Taako straddling his waist and Brad’s arms around him. 

“Be careful with me,” Brad rumbles. “It’s been some time.” Taako moans low curses but they’re lost in another kiss, bruisingly eager.

Brad slides out from under him. And Taako watches, short-circuited by lust, as Brad crawls to the foot of the bed and sets his hands shoulder-width apart on the mattress. Facing away from Taako but meeting his gaze, dark-eyed, through his reflection in the large mirror that hangs over the bureau. Expectant and unambiguous. 

Warm sunlight pools on Brad’s shoulder blades and the ridge of muscle along his spine, the curves of his ass, the dark braid that hangs down past his neck and over his collarbone. Taako wants to see that braid sway in the mirror, in time with the slap of his hips.

Christ.

Taako tries for grace as he gets up on his own knees, made conscious of his self by his reflection. The Taako in the mirror is pink-eared and sleep-tousled, a brown slip of an elf whose ribs are plainly visible, who has a rangey sharpness around his wrists and elbows; whose erection bobs with every movement, with the thrum of his pulse. He hooks a hand around himself. He eyes shift to Brad in the glass.

Brad is watching him from under black lashes; from behind the wisps of hair that escaped his braid in the night. Mouth slightly open and breath shallow and smirking, just a little, in the way that Taako might if he were the one on his hands and knees. Brad flexes the arch of his back and lifts his hips, inviting; devastating. Gorgeous and open and perfectly, intentionally presented as he waits for Taako to come up behind him; for Taako to fuck him. He’s asked for Taako to fuck him.

_Christ._

Taako smooths a palm along Brad’s flank and speaks slippery words in an old tongue. He holds himself steady as he nudges into place. “I’ll go slow, baby,” he promises. And then he shifts forward. 

Brad gasps as Taako enters him — just the head, at first, and then a pause for them both to get used to it. For Brad to show he’s ready to go on and for Taako to calm down enough to keep from coming right now, barely inside but _god_ Brad’s so tight and so hot and so good, and Taako wants to give that goodness back to him.

Taako’s fingers are laid along lines of muscle, thumbs pressed into the skin of his hips, eyes flickering between the Brad in the mirror and the Brad in his hands. He looks down at his cock, halfway inside; looks up at Brad’s face. Brad’s eyes are closed for a moment as he breathes through whatever he’s feeling, and watching him tangles up Taako’s insides in a way he would’ve said he didn’t have words for a few weeks ago.

Now he knows exactly what this feeling is, and it pushes on his heart and his lungs and sings along his nerves and boils up out of his mouth as, “You’re fucking incredible,” which isn’t quite it but close enough.

“More,” Brad murmurs, and Taako gives him more, and Brad ruts back to meet him with a hungry moan. Their bodies flush as Taako’s fingers curl hard, dimpling skin, his breath roughened by lust.

Taako bends to kiss Brad’s back. “I’m all yours, baby,” he says. “I’m yours, you just tell me what you want.”

“I...” Brad hangs his head, panting harder. “I need a moment.”

Taako smooths his palm in soothing circles over Brad’s hip, lips brushing lightly along Brad’s spine. He can feel Brad flexing around him; feel his pulse from the inside, heavy and quick.

A drawn-out exhale. Then, “All right.” 

“Like this?” Taako murmurs, and he pulls his hips a few inches away before smoothly thrusting forward again, his own mouth hanging open as he breathes through a fresh wave of heat and pleasure.

Brad rocks back to meet him with a ragged “Yes,” and Taako stops resisting. He holds Brad’s waist in both his hands, and watches their reflection as he fucks into Brad with unrestrained relish; as Brad’s body moves with the force of it, his hair swinging, his eyes on Taako’s face. “Gods, pet,” he manages between shallow gasps, and the sound of him is almost unbearable. Taako feels huge and powerful and also, at once, as owned as he ever has been. Like he’s a toy Brad is using on himself; like Brad is _his_ , dear and willing.

Gradually, mercilessly, Taako pushes: fucks him harder and faster, really digs his fingers in. “Like this?” Taako asks again, a playful purr. Giddy, maybe, from adrenaline and relief and from the feel of Brad around him; the sight of Brad’s trembling forearms, close to giving out.

Taako leans in along Brad’s back, but this time his hand slides all the way ‘round to find the heft of Brad’s cock. It bobs deliciously as they move — and Taako is still moving, still rutting into Brad even as the angle changes — and seeking fingers find slickness at the head. Brad moans as his foreskin is pulled gently back; as Taako curls a too-slight grip around him.

“This what you wanted, baby?” he murmurs. 

Brad groans. “You know what I want.”

Taako buzzes like a plucked string. Featherlight fingertips on Brad’s cock, slow deliberate fucks into Brad’s body. His own memory tells him just how maddening it must be, and how wonderful, to be tormented like this; have it made to last, when you know it’s only a matter of time. When you know you’ll be taken care of.

He thumbs beading precum and says, “Better tell me.”

Brad grips the edge of the mattress. “Harder.”

“Harder what?”

“Everything,” Brad gasps, his hips stuttering forward, a desperate rut into Taako’s hand. “Gods, I’m so...” He _whines_ then, and Taako nearly comes just from the sound of it. “Please.”

Nothing in Taako can stand against that. He tightens his grip on Brad’s cock, on Brad’s hip, and soon he’s sweating from the exertion of their sex, his thrusts and the awkward angle forced by Brad’s size; by his own need, undeniable, to watch all of this in the mirror. 

Brad’s arms give out, and then his face is pressed sideways into the bed, his mouth wide and panting, his eyes open but only just, heavy-lidded and half-hidden by hair and disordered sheets but still on Taako’s reflection. And Taako looks straight back at him as the pants quicken, full-voiced and high.

Brad’s body tightens around and beneath him, and with a last cracked cry Brad’s cock pulses hot and wet in his hand. 

Taako’s so close, wants it so badly, but he stills for moment to slide the hand from Brad’s hip round to his stomach, then up to the hollow of his chest. He kisses all of Brad that he can reach. Slick drips through his fingers and onto the bed. 

“Can I...” He chuckles and lays his cheek against Brad’s back. “God, why is this embarrassing...”

Brad’s cock thrums in his hand. “Ask me,” Brad rasps. 

Desire shudders through him. “I wanna come inside you,” he murmurs. “Can I-“

“Yes,” Brad says, forceful; eager, also, and really that’s the breaking point. 

Taako doesn’t last long; doesn’t even straighten again, just holds Brad close in both his arms, wrapped around that warm wide chest, and rides out the shuddering crest of the wave, fucking Brad through orgasm and the slippery aftershocks beyond, until he’s too soft and too wildly overstimulated to go on.

The two of them collapse in a heap at the foot of the bed. They shift around, laughing a little at their own exhausted lose-limbed awkwardness, until they’re both something like sideways and facing each other, their hair dangling off the end of the mattress and their hands clasped loosely between them, their foreheads touching. They’re sticky with drying sweat and semen, flushed from pleasure and effort. They’re happy, and together. And when Taako’s chest tightens from thinking about all of this, from allowing himself to really take it all in, he shifts to kiss Brad’s petal-soft eyelid, and he whispers, “Love you, baby.”

Brad kisses his mouth, gentle. Lingering. “Love you,” he rumbles. Then a sigh and a soft laugh. “Ugh.”

Taako snorts even as they kiss again. “Ugh, how’d we get this sappy?”

“Ugh, I have to get up and make breakfast.”

“Do you _really_ , though?”

“I invited your sister and Barold,” Brad says, “so yes.” 

Taako laughs. “You...wait, _when_ , you got her number like twelve hours ago and we spent most of those fucking or asleep.”

“Eighteen hours,” Brad says. “And she’s an...enthusiastic correspondent.”

“What, she blow up your Stone at 3AM?”

“Essentially.”

“Damn, she really does like you.”

“I hope so,” Brad says, with an uncomplicated honesty that disarms Taako entirely. He runs a finger along Taako’s jaw; smiling, warm and open. “She may also be arriving in a quarter hour, and as such...” He glances down at himself. “I should shower.”

Taako smirks. “What, you don’t wanna rock that ‘freshly fucked’ look in front of my sister?”

“Ugh,” Brad says again, emphatically, and he kisses Taako one last time before dragging himself up and off the bed.

Brad is much too large to use their shower with company, so Taako lingers in bed until the water shuts off, reveling in his hard-won filth. He takes his own turn while Brad shaves in the bathroom mirror, long hair gathered up in a towel on top of his head, which he does every single time but which will never stop being cute.

Taako pulls a sarong and a stretched-out cotton sweater from the pile at the bottom of his closet. Brad changes into the use-softened jeans and faded blue Bureau sweatshirt he’d packed in his overnight bag, his glasses back on again and his hair in a low loose ponytail. 

Kravitz is sitting in their sunny kitchen with a mug of tea in hand, his latest translation project spread across the table. He looks up as they pad into the room, and smiles, and says, “There’s coffee in the carafe.”

Taako starts a little at the sight of him. Which is stupid because Kravitz _lives_ here, but there’s no denying the dissonance. He covers it up by slouching over to loudly smooch Kravitz on the cheek. “Hey, handsome, when’d you get back?”

Kravitz kisses his mouth, cheerful by all appearances. “Oh it hasn’t been long, half an hour at most.”

Taako says, “I mean, you could’ve...” but trails off before the thought can go anywhere. The apartment is warded so aggressively that you could set off fireworks in the living room without the neighbors knowing, but the door to the _bedroom_ is not. He knows it’s stupid to feel weird about having been overheard by Kravitz of all people, but he does feel super fucking weird and he’s dead sure it shows on his face. Some other time he’d just make a preemptive joke of it to defang the whole situation, but he doesn’t want to joke about this. He doesn’t really even want to talk about it with anyone other than Brad, which _also_ feels weird and is also probably stupid.

“So what’s on the menu, big guy?” Taako asks, changing tracks entirely. 

“Corn tusks, fried eggs and bacon,” Brad says. “All of which are best served hot, so an estimated time of arrival would be helpful.”

“My colleagues have been lax about their paperwork and consequently held up somewhat,” Kravitz says, “but I expect they’ll be along soon.” He reaches for Brad, who obligingly steps into the circle of his arm and pecks him on the top of his head. “Awfully sorry to have been kept away last night, really I am,” Kravitz goes on, chagrined. His other arm is still curled around Taako’s waist, holding the three of them close together at their staggered heights, seated and standing and standing-while-Brad. “How did things turn out in Refuge? Did you have a pleasant...I suppose it was a meeting?”

Taako glances at Brad over the top of Kravitz’s head, and is met with a small questioning frown. They never really finished hammering this shit out -- honestly, Taako hasn’t thought about it at all since last night. He’d been too busy being a giant gay mess to really do a lot of deep thinking about his career, and god, that afternoon in Refuge feels a million years behind him. Like it was on the far side of a reset in the old Starblaster days -- something that happened to a different version of himself.

He lays a hand along the back of Kravitz’s neck. “Yeah so, here’s the thing, kinda looks like I’m gonna take a pass on whole school biz,” he says. “Not really my bag, turns out.”

“Bloody good meeting, then,” Kravitz says brightly. “My lot take an eternity to decide on anything, dreadfully inefficient.” 

“We sorted it out,” Brad says quietly. He’s still watching Taako, his own expression soft, and Taako abruptly wants to go back to bed. He wants to turn on his heel and go back to bed and not have to do anything but kiss Brad’s stupid handsome face and lay around feeling gooey about it.

He bends down to hug Kravitz’s shoulders from behind, his nose squashed up against the short springy curls at his hairline. “M’ glad you made it back,” Taako says, and means it. He loves Kravitz, too. They bought this place together. They’re making a future together, and that’s what Taako wanted. That’s what he still wants.

Brad has always been a part of his relationship with Kravitz, however much he tried to pretend otherwise. But he and Brad...the whole _thing_ they did together, not just the sex but all of it, all those weekends alone in Brad’s tiny apartment, which Taako never spoke to anyone about. It had always been just them. Even their breakup was private, really. He’d told Kravitz so little, then, and even now there are huge gaping holes in what he’s said. Even now, he can feel himself drifting back into that small selfish place; that secret walled city with only him and Brad inside it. 

Two impulses at once; two versions of the same elf, and both of them in love.

“I’m glad to be home,” Kravitz says, and kisses Taako’s forearm. “I missed you.” Another kiss, pressed to Brad’s hand. “Both of you. Although I expect you entertained yourselves well enough.”

“Well enough,” Brad agrees, dry. He rests a hand on Taako’s back. “Much as I enjoy your company, however, I’d prefer we talk once you’ve relocated your hobby from my workspace.”

Kravitz laughs. “Are you ordering me to clean my own kitchen, sir?”

“Yes,” Brad says, and kisses the tops of both their heads before crossing the room to the icebox.

Taako hugs Kravitz a little tighter, his mouth close to one blunt rounded ear. “This is okay, right?” he murmurs, just for them. “You’re okay.”

“I’m wonderful,” Kravitz says. He reaches up to squeeze Taako’s hand. “And very lucky.”

“Mm.”

“As were you, by the sound of it,” Kravitz drawls, gently teasing.

Taako shoves his face against Kravitz’s neck, and breathes in the ozone smell of him; listens to the clink and clatter of Brad setting out bowls and cutlery. “Yeah,” he says softly. “Yeah, I guess I was.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from [Strange Diseases by Gang of Youths](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZAP0SE82ic), and was suggested by RQT as per usual.
> 
> Many many thanks to Gulch and RQT for their encouragement, their feedback, and for bullying me into posting this.
> 
> [@Wildgoosery](https://twitter.com/wildgoosery)


End file.
